Lying Low and Planning Far Ahead

Jingtian was like a seabed reef, suppressing every trace of his life force to the utmost. Even the deep-blue rings on his body had turned dim and mottled beneath his camouflage. His senses extended like the finest spider silk, cautiously splitting into two streams. One locked onto the Red-Veined Iron-Claw Shrimp struggling in terror within the reef hollow, radiating the scent of bait. The other pointed toward the depths of the Black Stone Forest, toward the cave that exuded a cold, brutal aura.

Time flowed slowly amid silence and invisible tension.

In the direction of the Seaweed Forest, the disturbance was spreading. Several hundred-year Iron Pincer Shrimps patrolling the outskirts were the first to notice something was wrong—members of their kind had gone missing, and unfamiliar pheromones carrying pain and fear lingered in the water. They swiftly relayed the information back. Before long, a search party led by several hundred-year Iron Pincer Shrimps and composed of some twenty or thirty ordinary Iron Pincer Shrimps cautiously followed the faint but persistent distress signal toward the edge of the Black Stone Forest—the area where Jingtian had laid his trap.

They were here!

Jingtian tensed, but a flicker of anticipation rose within him as well. The first step of the plan seemed to be proceeding as expected.

At the same time, deep within the stone forest, the terrifying Soul Power fluctuations belonging to the Silver-Veined Thunder Eel began to react. It seemed to have sensed the presence of uninvited guests at the edge of its territory, along with a scent of... food? The brutality in its icy vertical pupils was replaced by a trace of greed. To a thousand-year soul beast, an Iron Pincer Shrimp with only a few decades of cultivation was not even enough to fill a gap between its teeth, but there was no reason not to eat a snack delivered straight to its mouth.

And the "scars" on that shrimp... seemed somewhat familiar? The aura of lightning? But it was faint and muddled. The Thunder Eel's simple mind did not investigate further, merely assuming that the shrimp had perhaps been struck by one of its stray electric arcs before.

Its enormous body slowly swam out of the cave, stirring up a powerful undercurrent. Blue-white electricity began to travel along the patterns on its body, crackling softly as it illuminated the dark cave passage.

The search party and the Thunder Eel closed in on the reef hollow almost simultaneously.

Jingtian's "heart" rose to his throat. Success or failure would be decided here! As long as the two sides encountered each other and saw the scene, conflict would be almost unavoidable! He had even begun rehearsing in his mind how he would silently approach while the shrimp swarm fought the Thunder Eel, find a gap in the eel's defenses, and inject the fatal venom he had been storing into its vital point...

The shrimp search party arrived first. They saw their dying kin in the hollow, covered in "burn marks," and sensed the faint lingering pressure and Soul Power traces belonging to the Thunder Eel.

The leading hundred-year Iron Pincer Shrimp let out an enraged hiss, raising its pincers high as dark-red Soul Power gleamed across its shell. The other Iron Pincer Shrimps grew restless as well, provoked by the miserable state of their kin and the Thunder Eel's aura.

Just then—

"Boom—!!!"

A blue-white pillar of lightning, far thicker and more blinding than before, lashed out from the direction of the stone forest like the whip of a thunder god tearing through the deep sea! Its speed and power far surpassed anything Jingtian had observed before!

The lightning was not aimed at the shrimp swarm. It struck directly at that stretch of reef—or rather, at the hollow where the bait Iron Pincer Shrimp lay!

Blinding light instantly swallowed everything! Terrifying lightning energy ran rampant through the seawater, conducting in every direction! The already dying Iron Pincer Shrimp did not even have time to make a sound before it was instantly vaporized by the extreme heat and electricity, leaving not even a scrap behind!

And the area affected by the lightning extended far beyond that hollow.

The shrimp search party bore the brunt of it. Those twenty or thirty Iron Pincer Shrimps, including the leading hundred-year soul beasts, did not even have time to react before they convulsed violently beneath the lightning's onslaught. Their shells blackened and shattered, and more than half of their life force was snuffed out in an instant like candles in the wind! Only a few at the very edge escaped being directly hit. Even they were caught by the powerful current, left severely injured and listless as they fled backward in terror.

Just one strike!

Just one distant, seemingly casual blast of lightning!

A search party of dozens of soul beasts led by several hundred-year soul beasts had been nearly wiped out! Even the survivors were grievously wounded and on the verge of death!

In Jingtian's senses, the dense, active Soul Power fluctuations vanished over a vast area in an instant, like candle flames swept by a gale. Only a few scattered, faint, panicked fluctuations remained as they fled wildly.

Hidden in the darkness, Jingtian felt as though the terrifying lightning had frozen his entire consciousness.

I miscalculated... A cold thought surfaced. How could hundred-year soul beasts possibly defeat a thousand-year one...?

His previous plan had been based on observation, deduction, and the "common sense" of human thinking. He had assumed that no matter how powerful a thousand-year soul beast was, it would still need to make contact and engage in a prolonged fight. He had assumed the shrimp swarm's numerical advantage could cause trouble.

He had been wrong.

Before an absolute gap in power, numbers and schemes were laughably pale.

To a predator on the Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's level, those Iron Pincer Shrimps with a few decades or a hundred years of cultivation were not "enemies." They did not even qualify as "opponents." They were merely... insects that occasionally appeared at the edge of its territory. And did one need a war to deal with insects? Did one need a drawn-out battle?

No.

All it took was one casual, wide-area, crushing attack.

Jingtian had not even seen clearly how the Thunder Eel had launched its attack. The lightning had been too fast, too violent, and covered too wide an area. If the place where he had been hiding had been several dozen meters closer, if he had risked approaching the center of the battlefield in order to "wait for a chance to ambush it"... then the ones reduced to charred remains would not have been only those Iron Pincer Shrimps.

The cold of the Deep Sea had never felt so bone-piercing.

The Silver-Veined Thunder Eel seemed quite satisfied with this "clearing of the field." It did not even feel inclined to swim over and inspect the results. It merely cast a cold glance toward the direction where the shrimp swarm had fled—the Seaweed Forest—and a warning glint of lightning flashed through its vertical pupils, as if saying: Trespassers die.

Then its enormous body turned around and slowly swam back into its cave, too lazy even to devour the blackened "remains." Perhaps the energy of such low-level soul beasts was no longer enough to interest it.

At the edge of the stone forest, only scattered electric arcs continued to crackle in the current, along with the slowly dispersing smell of scorched flesh and the lingering aftereffects of dissipating Soul Power.

In the direction of the shrimp swarm, deathly silence fell. The survivors who had fled back carried terrifying news with them. The large shrimp force that might have gathered immediately lost all momentum, and even patrols approaching the boundary withdrew. Before power they could not possibly resist, any thought of revenge was suicide.

Jingtian remained hidden in the darkness, motionless, as though he had truly become part of the reef.

Only after a long time—long enough for every electric arc to fade and for darkness and silence to once again rule the seawater—did he slowly, almost imperceptibly, move backward.

His movements were stiff and slow.

It was not because he feared being discovered—the Thunder Eel clearly could not be bothered to pay attention to this area anymore. And the shrimp swarm had become frightened birds.

It was because of a deep, bone-level sense of powerlessness, and clarity.

For the first time, he understood so clearly just how vast the gap between power tiers was in this world. A hundred years and a thousand years sounded like only one rank apart, but the difference was a chasm. His venom might be special enough to injure enemies above his level, but before the other's wide-area, ultra-fast, high-powered attacks, his chances of even getting close were vanishingly small, much less injecting poison precisely into a vital spot.

I'm too weak... and too naive. The thought surfaced with absolute clarity. Using a tiger to devour a wolf? The prerequisite is being qualified to drive the tiger, rather than being an insect casually crushed beneath the paws of both tiger and wolf.

He silently retreated to his nest, rechecked and reinforced every warning and defensive arrangement at its entrance. Then he came before the crack that radiated an ancient aura and curled up before it.

He did not begin cultivating immediately.

He merely "watched" the crack in silence, sensing the heavy, ancient aura within it.

The frustration and helplessness from his earlier defeat did not make him choose to risk everything by absorbing that domineering, unknown energy. On the contrary, the failure was like a bucket of icy water that cooled his overheated mind.

Impulsiveness and recklessness were the best catalysts for accelerating a weakling's death.

He needed power, yes. But not by gambling on a slim stroke of fortune through a near-suicidal method. The energy within the crack was clearly on too high a level. If he forcibly drew it in, the most likely result would not be a breakthrough, but being assimilated or burst apart by that violent will, becoming unconscious energy residue—or triggering an uncontrollable mutation, perhaps even drawing the attention of something more terrifying.

What he needed was stable, controllable, cumulative growth.

And right before him lay a safer path—going somewhere weaker to bully the weak.

Yes, his venom was a lethal threat to hundred-year soul beasts. Aside from the thousand-year monster in the Black Stone Forest and a few dangerous areas, most regions of the Western Silent Sea Abyss were populated by soul beasts ranging from a few decades to several hundred years. These targets might require hard battles for other hundred-year soul beasts, but for Jingtian, who possessed neurotoxic venom, they were efficient "experience packs" as long as his strategy was sound.

His targets needed to change. His plan needed to change.

He would no longer set his sights on those unreachable thousand-year existences, or on high-risk schemes involving complex calculations like using a tiger to devour a wolf. He needed to return to the most fundamental logic of survival and growth: hunt prey he could reliably consume, accumulate cultivation, and strengthen his foundation.

First came target selection. He would avoid the known dangerous regions—the Black Stone Forest, the Spiny Grouper nest, the Ghost-Faced Octopus shipwreck zone, and so on—and seek suitable hundred-year soul beast targets in other relatively safe areas. Preferably ones with relatively weak defenses, slow speed, or low intelligence, ensuring his venom could strike effectively and take effect.

Second, his hunting methods needed to be optimized. He could not rely on lures or manufactured conflict scenes every time; there were too many variables. He needed more proactive scouting and more precise ambushes. He would make full use of his camouflage and sensory advantages, approach his targets, kill with one strike, then swiftly devour them and withdraw.

Finally, the importance of his nest was once again apparent. It was not merely a shelter, but a base for digesting spoils and breaking through safely. Its absolute security had to be guaranteed.

Once he sorted out his thoughts, the gloom brought on by failure slowly faded from Jingtian's heart, replaced by a calmer, more pragmatic resolve.

He began to act.

The first step was to completely digest the energy reserves already within his body, stabilize his cultivation at the peak of eighty years, and attempt to naturally break through to the hundred-year level. This time, he would not rely on outside help, only on his own accumulation and the nourishment of the gentle aura leaking from the crack.

The second step was to conduct more meticulous and thorough environmental scouting centered around his nest. He would draw a detailed "safe hunting map," marking the common territories, activity patterns, and weakness analyses of soul beasts of different levels.

The third step was to formulate several hunting plans tailored to different hundred-year soul beasts, then begin preparing the corresponding "hunting tools"—such as strengthening specific types of venom and gathering auxiliary materials for luring or interference.

There was no day or night in the Deep Sea.

Like the most patient craftsman, Jingtian began forging an entirely new system of survival and growth based on reality. He no longer aimed too high. Instead, he built up his strength step by step, with his feet firmly on the ground.

Every scouting trip was carried out with extreme caution, and every hunting attempt was planned before he acted. He killed a Thick-Armored Blind Weasel with one hundred and twenty years of cultivation, skilled at burrowing through sand but with extremely poor vision; poisoned to death a Stone-Hammer Clam with one hundred and fifty years of cultivation, immensely strong but slow to react; and even designed a trap to kill an Arrow-Spine Pufferfish with one hundred and eighty years of cultivation, capable of long-range water-arrow attacks but fragile in close combat.

The process was not always smooth. He encountered accidents, suffered injuries from prey's dying counterattacks, and nearly entered the territories of other powerful soul beasts due to misjudgments. But through caution, poison arts, and a bit of luck, he endured them all.

The energy gained from devouring these hundred-year soul beasts was substantial. His cultivation steadily rose, and breaking through the hundred-year bottleneck came as naturally as water flowing into a channel. It continued to grow afterward. Through repeated real combat, his venom became more insidious and more lethal. His understanding of this sea region also deepened by the day.

He still kept far away from the Black Stone Forest, but whenever he occasionally sensed the terrifying thunderstorm fluctuations coming from that direction, what filled his heart was no longer the helplessness and fear of before, but a cold, settled sense of purpose.

One day.

But not now.

For now, all he had to do was grow stronger, using the safest methods possible to devour everything he could devour and accumulate everything he could accumulate.

The darkness of the Deep Sea remained, but in Jingtian's eyes, the path leading toward the future had become far clearer than it had been at the start.

The deep-blue rings on his tentacles grew ever more solid and profound through hunting and devouring.